1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to training devices for public safety officers and cadets.
2. Background Information
Public Safety personnel (e.g. fire fighters, police, sheriff, SWAT team, FBI and ATF officers), as well as military personnel are often faced with the need to perform a forced entry into structures. A forced entry can be, and often is a life-threatening scenarios, where every second counts.
Variations in door breaching technique, how ever slight, as well as practice and conditioning for the operation are vital in shaving seconds from the operation—seconds which can span the difference between life-saving tactical surprise and life-ending ambush.
Presently, forced entry training is performed using conventional doors and door frames. While this certainly provides realistic training opportunities, such an approach is quite costly for self-evident reasons (not only the cost of constantly replenishing door supplies, but the installations costs as well). While few would admit (even if aware of the fact) to trading of life-saving training for savings in door costs, many training facilities are through to limit door breach training to something of a practical minimum, simply because of the present cost implications.
Clearly, it would well serve those who perform emergency or law enforcement-related door breaching operations, as well as those civilians whose lives often depend on such operations (entrapped fire victims and hostages, for example) to provide an alternative means of training for door breach operations, which, because of considerably favorable cost efficiency when compared to conventional training options, and resulting lower resistance to more thorough and repeated practice training, results in more effective implementation of door breaching operations in the field.